Legend Of Zelda Fan Fiction ❯ Contemplations on Condescension ❯ Out of Sight, Not of Mind ( Chapter 3 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Kacfrog711 
Life without Link.
Non Anime: Legend Of Zelda Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Psychological / Drama | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 08.07.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.9K | Visits: 343 | Status: Completed
Life without Link.
Non Anime: Legend Of Zelda Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Psychological / Drama | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 08.07.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.9K | Visits: 343 | Status: Completed
Chapter 3: Out of Sight, Not of Mind
If my mother had nothing ill to say about the green– about Link, though, then there most likely wasn’t anyone in all of Termina who had ill to say about him. And that fact alone proved to me that there was something seriously wrong with the boy. No one’s reputation was that clean. My mother had some gossip on us all, including my sweet, innocent Anju, and all she could say of this boy was, “He’s a dear” ? Was it mind control? Magic? Some sort of poison only I was immune to? How could everyone be so naive regarding the... Link?
Could it be true, what my mother had said? That I hated him only because I couldn’t find a decent reason to hate him? No, I refused to accept that. It wasn’t my problem; it was his. There was definitely something strange about this boy. No one is that sickeningly charitable without having some sort of dirty nugget to cover up. Whatever Link was hiding, it was something huge, something horrible; I knew it. He was doing penance for something. And I would find out what it was and expose him for it.
The thought crossed my mind, as I entered the inn once more, that I might be jealous of the boy. He was, after all, dearly loved by all the people who should, rightfully, dearly love me: my parents, my wife, and everyone, really. But I quickly dismissed THAT little thought. I didn’t envy the boy a bit. He was a child: something I had experienced twice now and planned never to again. It was horrible to be a child, to be constantly patronized and supervised as if incapable. The love the town had for him was a parental love, the way one loves an obedient, dark-eyed puppy dog. No, I didn’t envy him at all. Besides, I didn’t want their affection. They were all idiots anyway.
Anju caught me from behind on my way up the stairs, hugging me and leaning her head on my back. She said into my shirt, “Are you feeling better, love? Where have you been? ...You’re cold.”
I turned in her arms and dropped down a step to get on somewhat more even footing. Pulling her close to me, I whispered, “I’m warmer now,” effectively dodging her first two questions. Anju blushed and leaned even closer to me; I could feel her breath on my neck. When I inhaled, I caught the faint antiseptic smell of her dark red hair. We parted after only a few moments, and she looked down at the floor before smiling up at me. I mirrored the look before turning and continuing to our room. Likewise, she spun and returned to the ground floor, presumably to go about closing up for the night.
After having slept most of the day, I wasn’t nearly tired enough to do it again, now that it was getting late into the evening. Regardless, I changed my clothes and slid under the heavy covers of our bed, closing my eyes and feigning sleep while my mind wandered. I considered my next plan of action. My mother had proven useless (as I should have predicted), and she had been my best hope for discovering Link’s devious secret. I could continue on with my search, asking my father, the guards, the shop-owners, and various others for information... but I knew these pursuits would also fail. And, frankly, I didn’t think I could stand hearing much more flattery of the arrogant brat. As a last desperate attempt, I could always ask Anju... but I quickly dismissed this thought as well. Not only would the inquiry make my wife suspicious of me, but she was also unlikely to know anything. For all I love her, she’s not the most perceptive thing. No, it wasn’t worth the trouble to involve her. What else could I do? It all seemed extremely dismal, yet I was determined.
It wasn’t long before Anju arrived in our room, and I continued my act. Most likely, she figured I was still ill and was simply “sleeping it off.” I heard her undress and felt her presence as she slipped next to me in our bed. Mere moments later, her breathing became slow, and she was still. I remained there, my mind still running circles around possible informational sources until I couldn’t stand being motionless any longer. I rose and left the room, then the inn. Still in my nightclothes, I wandered the deserted streets, past the shops and the huge clock tower. I came to the laundry pool and sat on the small bridge there, dangling my bare feet into the water. It was summer now, yet the night air was cool; the seemingly black water that lapped at my ankles was freezing: both lulling and invigorating me. This place was one I had spent most of my time in during those long days when I was trapped in my child-body. There were no lights here, other than the now distant, luminous moon, and a stray bug’s glow. A frog croaked constantly, and the wind “whush”ed through the long grass it hid in. It was very peaceful, mostly because it was very secluded. I enjoyed being alone here. Very few people even knew of this place, much less bothered to visit it.
...One of them, I recalled bitterly, was the Green-hat boy. I couldn’t get away from him if I tried, and oh, how I had tried. He had followed me all through the town. He had followed me here to the laundry pool. He had followed me to the Curiosity Shop. He had followed me to the Stockpot Inn. He had even followed me to Sakon’s hideout. Everywhere I had gone, he had followed and offered his help. It had seemed that the more I’d tried to escape him, the more eagerly he’d tracked me down. The one place he hadn’t followed me was to my wedding. I hadn’t seen him there, amazingly enough. I wondered, passingly, why that was. He’d left rather quickly after The Carnival, only to arrive once more in Clock Town a number of weeks later. Then, he was gone again. He never stayed for long, did he. A week, a few days... Suspicious, indeed.
The night passed uneventfully. At some point, I leaned back on the bridge to watch the sky, and I soon, despite myself, fell asleep in that position. I woke later (with a rather sore back) to find the sky a shade of predawn pink-grey, and hurriedly made my way back to the Inn. As I climbed into the bed again, Anju opened her dark blue eyes, and I immediately reversed the action, pulling back the covers. I stood and stretched languidly, then looked back over at her and, as if surprised to see her awake, whispered, “Oh, good morning.” I leaned down and kissed her gently before saying, “I’m sorry I woke you.” She blinked, “Mm”ed, and shook her head, still not fully alert. We dressed as normal, and another long, dull day at The Stockpot began.
I had never really played a central role in the town’s quaint society. My father was the mayor, signing papers and “making appearances”. My mother was the connection between my often-eccentric father and the ever-demanding people. As for me, I was... the mayor’s son. I was husband to “that nice red-headed girl who works at the inn.” And that was all. I didn’t need to make appearances, and my words, officially, held no more authority than anyone else’s. I had never gotten a job as I was well-provided for, and it was generally assumed that I would be mayor when my father died (as had been his father before him). And Anju, they all said, would make a fine Mayor’s Wife some day.
The inn is notoriously small, which is fine as there are never many outsiders visiting Clock Town. As a member of the “staff,” I worked my daily shift at the front desk. This so-called job consisted mostly of sitting there and doing absolutely nothing. Occasionally, I had to use a master key to open someone’s locked door, or receive the mail, or take payments from someone, or write in a reservation. None of this lasted more than ten minutes out of the four-hour shift, though, and the rest of my time was spent sitting, staring at the decorative masks on the far wall. I spent that time thinking, and my thoughts always circled back to, “Why, when he looked at me, were his eyes so deep? What did he see? What does he think he knows?”
No one seemed to notice the change in me. My wife must have, and she gave me some odd looks for it, but she didn’t mention anything. I was more reserved that next day, quieter. I didn’t yell at anyone or anything, or laugh. I couldn’t focus on conversations for very long, and I preferred to drift in my thoughts. I ate in silence and retired to bed early. By eleven at night, I was up and out again, wandering the dark, deserted town. I ended up at the laundry pool, my one constant asylum, and I fell asleep there. It was becoming a pattern, but I was fine with this realization and made no attempt to change it.
Thus, the day passed, and another similar day followed. And another. And another. The week went by, then the month. Summer ended and gave way to another dismal autumn. It became cold, and still I spent my nights beside the frigid, motionless water , even after it froze. Time continued steadily spinning, I found no answers to my thoughts, and the Green-hat boy did not return to Clock Town. I was, of course, elated by his absence. Yet, at the same time, I was horribly frustrated by it. I hated him, and I considered it a blessing that he hadn’t returned. ...I also wanted desperately for him to do just that: to show up at our front desk with a pack as large as himself, a wide smile, and eyes as grey as slate yet deep and somehow reflective as onyx. I needed him back here so I could demand the answers I knew only he held. For my part, I hadn’t found out any more about the boy. In fact, I had once more forgotten his name, thus actually retrogressing a step in my quest for knowledge, and I didn’t dare ask my mother again. Name or no, his innocent face and adult eyes remained forever in my mind, mocking me effortlessly.
Nothing changes in small towns. People are born, people die, but everything else stays the same. Everyone wakes at the same time each day, eats the same meals each day, and sleeps at the same time each night, only to wake again. The cycle doesn’t end even with death, as it is continued by the next generation, who readily take their parents’ jobs, or their neighbors’. The only thing that ever changed about Termina was the outsiders who chanced to visit it; thus, such an occasion was always something to speak of fondly. However, as I’ve mentioned, such visitors were generally few and far between - save two. The ranch girls, though technically outsiders, visited frequently and were known well by all. Every week, they would bring a cartload of milk into town for the bar to sell. They’d spend the day there, then the night at our inn (The nights were always long when one put the elder ranch girl and my wife in the same room.), and the next morning they would be on their way back to their ranch down Milk Road. It was expected of them, and on the rare occasion the girls didn’t show, they always had a story to tell a day or two later, when they finally did. They were often slowed by weather and their unfortunate luck with bandits, but they never, ever failed a week’s delivery.
Thus, it was noticed by everyone when nearly three weeks passed that next summer with no word from the ranch girls. The town was so aware of it, in fact, that even I, in my somewhat numb state, realized the err of the situation. Anju was positively frightened for them, and I it was all I heard from her for those long weeks. There was a general call for action, and a number of people proposed searching for the girls along the path between Clock Town and their ranch. My father eagerly took up this proposal, and two guards (all, my mother insisted, the town could afford to lose) were sent in the ranch’s general direction. The whole town paused in its activities to see them off with waves and wishes for good luck and a safe journey.
Clock Town settled down again the day after, easily resuming everyday life with the assurance that the guards and the ranch girls would return in a matter of days. Likewise, I resumed my own schedule, though when it was my turn at the front desk, I had a few new things to ponder. I wondered what could have happened to two such as them. Those ranch girls were far from the quintessence of delicate femininity. The elder sister was about my age and could most likely lift twice the weight I could, and the younger was never seen without a quiver of arrows and a bow nearly as large as herself (a laughable foe, but formidable, I’ve heard insisted). Regardless of their actual situation, I was sure they could handle themselves better than most. Further, they were farmers, living out in the open and alone, and they had been all their lives. It must have been something truly terrible to keep them away for so long. ...Or maybe it was something completely ordinary. Maybe their cows had stopped giving milk, and they had nothing to sell. Maybe one had become ill and the other was tending to her, rending them unable to travel. Maybe a wheel on their cart broke, or the horse died. There was any number of possibilities that didn’t merit sending armed guards after them, yet send them my father had. In truth, the guards were more retrievers of gossip than anything else, and the town eagerly awaited their return for just that reason.
As I thought more on the girls’ possible troubles, my mind very easily went to one answer: that is to say, one person. I knew it was ridiculous and implausible... but I couldn’t help thinking that the green-hatted boy was involved somehow. Of course, he wouldn’t have injured or purposefully detained the girls; he was far too subtle for that. Somehow, though, he had prevented them from making their deliveries. I didn’t know how exactly or why, but I knew it had to involve him. Maybe it was paranoia on my part to think so, but I felt the leap in reasoning was justified. After all, what strange thing had happened in Termina that hadn’t, somehow, in some way, involved the touch of Green-hat? Everything could be traced back to him like the first drop of dye in a polluted pond: surely, if not directly.
Just over a week later, the guards returned. A crowd formed immediately to hear the news, good or bad. Apparently, it was good (and I’m sure a great number of people were disappointed by that fact. Everyone loves to hear bad news when it doesn’t directly involve himself or his own.). The two announced that the ranch girls had had some “unexpected affairs” to attend to at the ranch before they could make their shipment, and the guards apologized on their behalf. In a few days, they assured the townsfolk, the ranch girls would arrive with a delivery double the normal size. At that point in the explanation, the people began discussing with one another, and the crowd steadily dispersed. Mystery solved, they thought. Nothing to worry about. Now, to return to normal. And so, they did.
Sure enough, the milk cart came rumbling into town not two days later. The older girl merrily guided the horse along its way, greeting and waving to everyone they passed en route to the bar. Once in front (and conveniently in clear view from the inn), she hopped down and steered the horse by the reins to the side a bit, positioning the back of the cart at the bar’s door.
And there, sitting on the cart’s end beside the younger sister, laughing with her over some children’s joke, was the blonde-haired, grey-eyed, green-hatted boy.
If my mother had nothing ill to say about the green– about Link, though, then there most likely wasn’t anyone in all of Termina who had ill to say about him. And that fact alone proved to me that there was something seriously wrong with the boy. No one’s reputation was that clean. My mother had some gossip on us all, including my sweet, innocent Anju, and all she could say of this boy was, “He’s a dear” ? Was it mind control? Magic? Some sort of poison only I was immune to? How could everyone be so naive regarding the... Link?
Could it be true, what my mother had said? That I hated him only because I couldn’t find a decent reason to hate him? No, I refused to accept that. It wasn’t my problem; it was his. There was definitely something strange about this boy. No one is that sickeningly charitable without having some sort of dirty nugget to cover up. Whatever Link was hiding, it was something huge, something horrible; I knew it. He was doing penance for something. And I would find out what it was and expose him for it.
The thought crossed my mind, as I entered the inn once more, that I might be jealous of the boy. He was, after all, dearly loved by all the people who should, rightfully, dearly love me: my parents, my wife, and everyone, really. But I quickly dismissed THAT little thought. I didn’t envy the boy a bit. He was a child: something I had experienced twice now and planned never to again. It was horrible to be a child, to be constantly patronized and supervised as if incapable. The love the town had for him was a parental love, the way one loves an obedient, dark-eyed puppy dog. No, I didn’t envy him at all. Besides, I didn’t want their affection. They were all idiots anyway.
Anju caught me from behind on my way up the stairs, hugging me and leaning her head on my back. She said into my shirt, “Are you feeling better, love? Where have you been? ...You’re cold.”
I turned in her arms and dropped down a step to get on somewhat more even footing. Pulling her close to me, I whispered, “I’m warmer now,” effectively dodging her first two questions. Anju blushed and leaned even closer to me; I could feel her breath on my neck. When I inhaled, I caught the faint antiseptic smell of her dark red hair. We parted after only a few moments, and she looked down at the floor before smiling up at me. I mirrored the look before turning and continuing to our room. Likewise, she spun and returned to the ground floor, presumably to go about closing up for the night.
After having slept most of the day, I wasn’t nearly tired enough to do it again, now that it was getting late into the evening. Regardless, I changed my clothes and slid under the heavy covers of our bed, closing my eyes and feigning sleep while my mind wandered. I considered my next plan of action. My mother had proven useless (as I should have predicted), and she had been my best hope for discovering Link’s devious secret. I could continue on with my search, asking my father, the guards, the shop-owners, and various others for information... but I knew these pursuits would also fail. And, frankly, I didn’t think I could stand hearing much more flattery of the arrogant brat. As a last desperate attempt, I could always ask Anju... but I quickly dismissed this thought as well. Not only would the inquiry make my wife suspicious of me, but she was also unlikely to know anything. For all I love her, she’s not the most perceptive thing. No, it wasn’t worth the trouble to involve her. What else could I do? It all seemed extremely dismal, yet I was determined.
It wasn’t long before Anju arrived in our room, and I continued my act. Most likely, she figured I was still ill and was simply “sleeping it off.” I heard her undress and felt her presence as she slipped next to me in our bed. Mere moments later, her breathing became slow, and she was still. I remained there, my mind still running circles around possible informational sources until I couldn’t stand being motionless any longer. I rose and left the room, then the inn. Still in my nightclothes, I wandered the deserted streets, past the shops and the huge clock tower. I came to the laundry pool and sat on the small bridge there, dangling my bare feet into the water. It was summer now, yet the night air was cool; the seemingly black water that lapped at my ankles was freezing: both lulling and invigorating me. This place was one I had spent most of my time in during those long days when I was trapped in my child-body. There were no lights here, other than the now distant, luminous moon, and a stray bug’s glow. A frog croaked constantly, and the wind “whush”ed through the long grass it hid in. It was very peaceful, mostly because it was very secluded. I enjoyed being alone here. Very few people even knew of this place, much less bothered to visit it.
...One of them, I recalled bitterly, was the Green-hat boy. I couldn’t get away from him if I tried, and oh, how I had tried. He had followed me all through the town. He had followed me here to the laundry pool. He had followed me to the Curiosity Shop. He had followed me to the Stockpot Inn. He had even followed me to Sakon’s hideout. Everywhere I had gone, he had followed and offered his help. It had seemed that the more I’d tried to escape him, the more eagerly he’d tracked me down. The one place he hadn’t followed me was to my wedding. I hadn’t seen him there, amazingly enough. I wondered, passingly, why that was. He’d left rather quickly after The Carnival, only to arrive once more in Clock Town a number of weeks later. Then, he was gone again. He never stayed for long, did he. A week, a few days... Suspicious, indeed.
The night passed uneventfully. At some point, I leaned back on the bridge to watch the sky, and I soon, despite myself, fell asleep in that position. I woke later (with a rather sore back) to find the sky a shade of predawn pink-grey, and hurriedly made my way back to the Inn. As I climbed into the bed again, Anju opened her dark blue eyes, and I immediately reversed the action, pulling back the covers. I stood and stretched languidly, then looked back over at her and, as if surprised to see her awake, whispered, “Oh, good morning.” I leaned down and kissed her gently before saying, “I’m sorry I woke you.” She blinked, “Mm”ed, and shook her head, still not fully alert. We dressed as normal, and another long, dull day at The Stockpot began.
I had never really played a central role in the town’s quaint society. My father was the mayor, signing papers and “making appearances”. My mother was the connection between my often-eccentric father and the ever-demanding people. As for me, I was... the mayor’s son. I was husband to “that nice red-headed girl who works at the inn.” And that was all. I didn’t need to make appearances, and my words, officially, held no more authority than anyone else’s. I had never gotten a job as I was well-provided for, and it was generally assumed that I would be mayor when my father died (as had been his father before him). And Anju, they all said, would make a fine Mayor’s Wife some day.
The inn is notoriously small, which is fine as there are never many outsiders visiting Clock Town. As a member of the “staff,” I worked my daily shift at the front desk. This so-called job consisted mostly of sitting there and doing absolutely nothing. Occasionally, I had to use a master key to open someone’s locked door, or receive the mail, or take payments from someone, or write in a reservation. None of this lasted more than ten minutes out of the four-hour shift, though, and the rest of my time was spent sitting, staring at the decorative masks on the far wall. I spent that time thinking, and my thoughts always circled back to, “Why, when he looked at me, were his eyes so deep? What did he see? What does he think he knows?”
No one seemed to notice the change in me. My wife must have, and she gave me some odd looks for it, but she didn’t mention anything. I was more reserved that next day, quieter. I didn’t yell at anyone or anything, or laugh. I couldn’t focus on conversations for very long, and I preferred to drift in my thoughts. I ate in silence and retired to bed early. By eleven at night, I was up and out again, wandering the dark, deserted town. I ended up at the laundry pool, my one constant asylum, and I fell asleep there. It was becoming a pattern, but I was fine with this realization and made no attempt to change it.
Thus, the day passed, and another similar day followed. And another. And another. The week went by, then the month. Summer ended and gave way to another dismal autumn. It became cold, and still I spent my nights beside the frigid, motionless water , even after it froze. Time continued steadily spinning, I found no answers to my thoughts, and the Green-hat boy did not return to Clock Town. I was, of course, elated by his absence. Yet, at the same time, I was horribly frustrated by it. I hated him, and I considered it a blessing that he hadn’t returned. ...I also wanted desperately for him to do just that: to show up at our front desk with a pack as large as himself, a wide smile, and eyes as grey as slate yet deep and somehow reflective as onyx. I needed him back here so I could demand the answers I knew only he held. For my part, I hadn’t found out any more about the boy. In fact, I had once more forgotten his name, thus actually retrogressing a step in my quest for knowledge, and I didn’t dare ask my mother again. Name or no, his innocent face and adult eyes remained forever in my mind, mocking me effortlessly.
Nothing changes in small towns. People are born, people die, but everything else stays the same. Everyone wakes at the same time each day, eats the same meals each day, and sleeps at the same time each night, only to wake again. The cycle doesn’t end even with death, as it is continued by the next generation, who readily take their parents’ jobs, or their neighbors’. The only thing that ever changed about Termina was the outsiders who chanced to visit it; thus, such an occasion was always something to speak of fondly. However, as I’ve mentioned, such visitors were generally few and far between - save two. The ranch girls, though technically outsiders, visited frequently and were known well by all. Every week, they would bring a cartload of milk into town for the bar to sell. They’d spend the day there, then the night at our inn (The nights were always long when one put the elder ranch girl and my wife in the same room.), and the next morning they would be on their way back to their ranch down Milk Road. It was expected of them, and on the rare occasion the girls didn’t show, they always had a story to tell a day or two later, when they finally did. They were often slowed by weather and their unfortunate luck with bandits, but they never, ever failed a week’s delivery.
Thus, it was noticed by everyone when nearly three weeks passed that next summer with no word from the ranch girls. The town was so aware of it, in fact, that even I, in my somewhat numb state, realized the err of the situation. Anju was positively frightened for them, and I it was all I heard from her for those long weeks. There was a general call for action, and a number of people proposed searching for the girls along the path between Clock Town and their ranch. My father eagerly took up this proposal, and two guards (all, my mother insisted, the town could afford to lose) were sent in the ranch’s general direction. The whole town paused in its activities to see them off with waves and wishes for good luck and a safe journey.
Clock Town settled down again the day after, easily resuming everyday life with the assurance that the guards and the ranch girls would return in a matter of days. Likewise, I resumed my own schedule, though when it was my turn at the front desk, I had a few new things to ponder. I wondered what could have happened to two such as them. Those ranch girls were far from the quintessence of delicate femininity. The elder sister was about my age and could most likely lift twice the weight I could, and the younger was never seen without a quiver of arrows and a bow nearly as large as herself (a laughable foe, but formidable, I’ve heard insisted). Regardless of their actual situation, I was sure they could handle themselves better than most. Further, they were farmers, living out in the open and alone, and they had been all their lives. It must have been something truly terrible to keep them away for so long. ...Or maybe it was something completely ordinary. Maybe their cows had stopped giving milk, and they had nothing to sell. Maybe one had become ill and the other was tending to her, rending them unable to travel. Maybe a wheel on their cart broke, or the horse died. There was any number of possibilities that didn’t merit sending armed guards after them, yet send them my father had. In truth, the guards were more retrievers of gossip than anything else, and the town eagerly awaited their return for just that reason.
As I thought more on the girls’ possible troubles, my mind very easily went to one answer: that is to say, one person. I knew it was ridiculous and implausible... but I couldn’t help thinking that the green-hatted boy was involved somehow. Of course, he wouldn’t have injured or purposefully detained the girls; he was far too subtle for that. Somehow, though, he had prevented them from making their deliveries. I didn’t know how exactly or why, but I knew it had to involve him. Maybe it was paranoia on my part to think so, but I felt the leap in reasoning was justified. After all, what strange thing had happened in Termina that hadn’t, somehow, in some way, involved the touch of Green-hat? Everything could be traced back to him like the first drop of dye in a polluted pond: surely, if not directly.
Just over a week later, the guards returned. A crowd formed immediately to hear the news, good or bad. Apparently, it was good (and I’m sure a great number of people were disappointed by that fact. Everyone loves to hear bad news when it doesn’t directly involve himself or his own.). The two announced that the ranch girls had had some “unexpected affairs” to attend to at the ranch before they could make their shipment, and the guards apologized on their behalf. In a few days, they assured the townsfolk, the ranch girls would arrive with a delivery double the normal size. At that point in the explanation, the people began discussing with one another, and the crowd steadily dispersed. Mystery solved, they thought. Nothing to worry about. Now, to return to normal. And so, they did.
Sure enough, the milk cart came rumbling into town not two days later. The older girl merrily guided the horse along its way, greeting and waving to everyone they passed en route to the bar. Once in front (and conveniently in clear view from the inn), she hopped down and steered the horse by the reins to the side a bit, positioning the back of the cart at the bar’s door.
And there, sitting on the cart’s end beside the younger sister, laughing with her over some children’s joke, was the blonde-haired, grey-eyed, green-hatted boy.